The present invention relates to a merchandise display assembly, and more particularly to a such an assembly having a bin swingable from an upper horizontally recessed storage position at which merchandise items contained therein are within the normal reach of consumers, to a lower horizontally extended filling position at which such items can be readily loaded into the bin, yet when in lower position outwardly clearing another merchandise display unit such as a tray in the space therebelow and when in upper position upwardly clearing the tray for consumer access to its merchandise items.
The usual merchandise display unit used for dispensing lightweight bulky and often fragile ingredients such as salted snacks, e.g. potato chips, or other chip, snack, peanut, etc. salted snack category merchandise items, requires a large space in the consumer shopping area of supermarkets or other retail stores. This is because these items are of the "flex-bag" type, i.e. relatively large volume individual packages, often filled with air in hermetically sealed condition to avoid crushing of the contents and loss of commercial attractiveness.
While these items should desirably be arranged for maximum attractive display and ready access by consumers in retail stores, it is important that the unit use efficiently the lateral display area, i.e. the lateral or horizontal width along the store aisle, to hold as many items as possible. This is because the usual retail store allots only a limited amount of shelf space to each category of merchandise along the aisle, and since the usable shelf depth is fixed, while the usable height is limited to a range no higher generally that consumer eye level or consumer reach, that space must be efficiently used within its laterally constricting allotted width.
A major inherent problem with the merchandising of these salted snacks is that most of these items, in general, are more in the nature of low profit commodities and less identified by feature product or superior value attributes. Traditionally, situations exist in retailing around the world where these commodity products take up 50, 60 or even 70% of the physical volume of the salted snack category, but contribute proportionally less, e.g. 20, 30 or 40%, to profit.
In addition, these products, which may be termed "over-spaced" products, are prone to reaching early out-of-stock condition, in that fewer packages can be stored in a given display space and thus more frequent restocking is necessary. Even though these items are overspaced relative to profit, they are still not well spaced enough for merchandising efficiency.
While newer, premium products and products that can potentially grow and expand the size of this category for increased profitability, such as peanuts, tree nuts, dried fruits, and like specialty items, are becoming more prevalent, other small, denser, superior products are often relegated to secondary and underspaced positions relative to the space apportioned in the retail store to this category of merchandise.
It is clear from the above that a need exists for an improved merchandise display arrangement to overcome these drawbacks, and particularly to rearrange these bulky commodity products within the lateral confines of the space alloted to this product category in the retail store and in effect create additional space that allows for adequate featuring of the premium products as well, that can potentially expand this product category for increased profitability.